How to Kill Your Family also takes the reader on a psychological journey of sorts. The novel’s protagonist, 28-year-old Grace Bernard, sets off on a mission to eliminate all members of her family with an end-goal of seeking revenge on her father, millionaire businessman and stereotypical playboy who abandoned her and her mother as a baby. Grace Bernard is in Limehouse Prison serving a sentence for a crime she didn’t commit but that doesn’t mean to say she hasn’t committed some! To relieve the boredom and the inane chatter of cell mate Kelly she decides to write her astonishing story. This tell all explains exactly what she is guilty of! This is a novel about rejection and betrayal, revenge and retribution. We meet Grace in prison. But as rings true throughout the novel as a whole, she is there for reasons we later discover are far more complicated than would be contained in a straightforward murder – arrest – imprisonment plot.

Grace is an intriguing character who at times, the reader can only admire for her gumption, drive and unapologetic cruelty. I don’t aspire to become a Grace-like psychopathic killer, but I would like to imitate certain aspects of her strong but complicated character in my own life. Her ambition and determinism is, while directed in completely the wrong places, inspiring. She is exactly what a woman is told she shouldn’t be. She is goal driven, selfish and behaves in a way that diametrically opposes the stereotypical image of a subdued woman. Nobody would consider Grace a role-model but her sense of freedom from the many expectational chains placed on almost every human being, must have made her an incredibly cathartic character to write about. Grace is clearly intelligent for example— she comes up with ingenious ways to kill her relatives without leaving any trail. Yet she completely misreads the character of her cell-mate in prison. She is scathing about wealthy people with their expensive tastes in clothing, wine, and houses yet after her mother’s death she was raised by a high-income couple who taught her to enjoy the finer things in life. So Grace has benefited from a similar privileged life that she criticises other people for enjoying.A funny, compulsive read about family dysfuction and the media's obsession with murder' SUNDAY TIMES STYLE The idea is promising, Grace is a likeable character and the first chapters really hook you, even if you don't understand everything. But from there on is just a bunch of facts of her life after another, casual things that happened to her, the only two people still in her life and that horrible cellmate she unfortunately has. She plans with extreme precision and executes these plans with ease and no regrets. It is only on reflection that I realise just how vile her deeds were. While I was absorbed in her world, the violence and immorality of her acts was camouflaged by her planning, precision and rationalisation. one of the main themes of the book was about class, but it wasn’t really discussed in any profound way, and it actually became quite trite after a while. basically the whole book involved snipes at the rich/the upper classes (which i’m usually all here for) but THEN i discovered that the author of this book is alan rusbridger’s daughter and her grandfather is a baron….so she clearly moves in some privileged social circles herself, not exactly a working class hero. after that little discovery, the constant digs at privileged white people prompted a few eye rolls from me. You'll be gripped... Grace's emotional detachment throughout will give you chills' Rated 5 stars by COSMOPOLITAN

How To Kill Your Family is a dark, sometimes brutal, delight of a novel that had me giggling one moment and cringing the next. This is not a cozy story, but there is PLENTY of dark humor and snark, which I adore. Grace is not an angel, and this may sound terrible, but I really liked her and rooted for her the whole time. I thought from the opening couple of chapters that I was about to be proved wrong. How to Kill Your Family had a strong narrative voice and some amusingly cynical comments about the empty lives of rich people. But it went downhill rapidly. Grace Bernard has known for a long time that her father abandoned her mother and herself to eke out a hardscrabble London living on their own. But she’s a teenager when she realizes exactly the breadth of his neglect, and how callously his wealthy family has consigned her to the ash heap. After her mother dies of cancer when she’s thirteen, she begins to concoct a plan that will earn her not only vengeance but the inheritance she deserves. If you like snark, irony, and dark humor, and are willing to not take the book too seriously this is fun and fresh. If you liked Dexter, and/or the humor of Joe in You, or Paul in Best Day Ever, then you will love Grace. The twist toward the end was the icing on the cake. Despite it all, I was very entertained and thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook. When a voice can confidently convey attitude and inflection of numerous characters, you know that you’re in for a treat.Once anything seemed possible, the further twists were not surprising and in fact made it a depressing finish. It started off with a good idea. A girl who wants revenge on her family and kills them all but ends up being put in jail for a murder she did not commit. The idea was there. The execution was not. We meet Grace as she’s languishing in Limehouse prison for crime she didn’t commit. As you can guess from the blurb, that doesn’t mean she’s innocent, she’s far from it.

The story in How To Kill Your Family is fairly simple – we start off with Grace in Limehouse Prison for a murder she actually didn’t commit retelling the tales of some murders she did commit. It sounds like a really good premise and one that could have been executed so much better.

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When it got to the twist in the tale at the end, I was surprised for a moment and then thought ‘well that explains it (audiobook narration)’. Then felt like an ignoramus due to the probability given the nature of the characters in question. Our narrator Grace has been hard done by, there is no ifs nor buts about that. Which means it’s easy to support her actions, even though she’s killing seniors and teenagers alike. You’re not cheering her on per se, but your moral compass has shifted because, Grace has had a hard life for no real reason about from inconsideration from those around her. Also, it’s easy to like Grace because she’s confident with sarcastic quips and often is saying what we’re thinking but are too reserved to say ourselves. Addictive... Grace Bernard is one of the most intriguing and bewitching protagonists I've read in years' EMMA GANNON

It may seem as though this a straightforward tale of revenge but there’s more to it than that. It’s about family, it’s about class and the patriarchy – structures and systems that Grace is subverting.

Penance by Eliza Clarke

If now I can't even trust a nice pink cover with a girl and a shovel, I don't know what I can trust anymore. And her killing her cousin, who is nice and rejects the wealth just because she thinks that because he's a man he will give in eventually and become like them anyway... Well, it felt very forced and not really a great reason to kill anyone. i thought it was going to follow the protagonist plotting all the different murders - but that was barely focused on at all. instead of focusing on the story/plot, the protagonist goes on irrelevant rants about social/cultural observations which were clearly made by the author e.g. there was a big passage about the dangers of smart devices and smart homes. if the author wanted to write about these observations, why didn’t she just write an essay collection??? When Grace discovers her bio dad, a millionaire, rejected her and her dying mother, she decides to enact her revenge by killing the entire family. Yet, in a strange twist of fate, she is convicted and sent to prison for the one murder she DIDN’T commit.